MusicRadar

• Review

Cheap drum hardware was long a thing of little beauty. Until fairly recently, low-rent metalwork was flimsy, poorly designed, second-rate rubbish that you would upgrade as soon as you got a chance. Today, however, there are some decent options open to drummers on a budget.

 

With various Taiwanese manufacturing plants getting their heads around the intricacies of hi-hat and kick drum design, things have never been better if you're strapped for cash but in need of superior stands.

 

Birmingham Drum Centre (BDC), one of the UK's best-known drum retailers, is behind the latest addition to domestically available affordable hardware, having recently released its Elite collection. A modest assemblage (with new models in the pipeline) the Elite Series currently comprises all the important bits - including the cymbal stands, stool and bass drum pedal before us here.

 

Brand new

 

You might be wondering why anyone other than the big drum brands would bother making their own hardware. After all Pearl, Yamaha, DW, Tama et al have huge ranges of the stuff for players of their drums to add to their kits. Very true. But get over the brand snobbery and it's clear that a) a lot of this branded metalwork will emanate from just a few Far Eastern manufacturing bases - the very same as the own brand gear, and b) 'self-branded' hardware can represent exceptional value these days.

 

Considering BDC's Chris Payne has the opportunity to scrutinise everything that passes through his store and gain direct feedback from customers on the strengths and weaknesses of what's currently available, he is in a good position to come up with design ideas. Which is exactly what he's done in the case of the Elite Series.

 

According to Chris, BDC has teamed with a Taiwanese factory with no little experience in producing hardware for other high profile brands and worked with the manufacturer closely on BDC design concepts to come up with the range.

 

Standing firm

 

Each member of the Elite family is double-braced (except, of course, the bass drum pedal), but the hi-hat stand keeps its mass down a tad by being of the twin-leg persuasion.

This also makes for easy positioning if you're using a double pedal - and transportation is also made easier thanks to its fully collapsible footplate arrangement.

 

The physical nature of the set-up is tricky to describe, but it involves a sliding catch on the left-hand side of the base frame that secures with a hex bolt. When in play, the catch slides down over one of the legs of the L-shaped footplate section, and when you're packing away it unbolts, slides up and allows the footplate to fold flat against the stand itself.